Immolation
by MsEstora
Summary: Meta-fic, companion to "Broken". Anakin Skywalker's life in fourteen stages. "The black sand beneath you burns away your tears, and your agony keeps the flames alive..."


_Disclaimer:__ This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by George Lucas. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended._

_

* * *

_

Just to prove I understand and sympathise with Anakin's character as much as I do with Obi-Wan's. Sometimes more, depending on what mood I'm in. Hope you enjoy this!

_Please note: this is a companion piece to "Broken", which is from Obi-Wan's point of view. If you haven't read that, please do, because a lot of it is reflected in this story to demonstrate the lack of communication between Anakin and Obi-Wan. Both stories stand on their own, but for a more complete picture I do recommend you read the stories together._

_

* * *

_

**Immolation**

1. The first time you're struck, you're only four years old. The unexpected sting across your flesh makes you weep long into the night, wondering what you did to deserve it and why it hurts so much. It's the first time but it isn't the only time, and soon the pain becomes commonplace, but your mum is always there for you and reminds you, every night even when you haven't been hurt, that it's _wrong_ what the slavers are doing to you, and there is a better life out there. All through the night, she holds you tightly, whispering a song her mother taught her, and rocks you to sleep, the homemade healing balm soothing your stinging back, and you know that it's all right to reach out for comfort, because she'll always reach back for you.

2. In slavery, companionship is the only real possession you have. You have your mum, and mum has you, and as long as you're together you'll be safe. Love, she teaches you, is all anyone needs to make the galaxy a better place. With Watto as your new master you're treated better than you were before under Gardulla – no more whips and blood-soaked quarters shared with tens of other slaves – and she still tucks you in at night, reminding you with that smile and a kiss on the forehead which fills you with that feeling of _home_, that you are Anakin Skywalker. You are more than a slave.

3. "Much fear, I sense in you." You may be young but you know perfectly well what you're feeling. Yes, you're scared. You want to see your mum and make sure she's all right. You want to be a Jedi, you _need_ to be a Jedi, because if you aren't accepted by the Order does that mean you'll have to go back to being a slave? You can't be a slave again, not when you've finally become Anakin Skywalker. Not when you finally have the chance to save her. To save the galaxy.

4. Qui-Gon dies on Naboo, and as upset as you are about the death of the first man who ever really cared about you, you're also frightened. "What will happen to me now?" you ask Obi-Wan Kenobi, the one you think doesn't like you much, on the night of Qui-Gon's immolation ceremony, and he gazes at you with sad green eyes for a moment, as if assessing you, then tells you that the Council has given him permission to train you. "You will be a Jedi, I promise," he finishes softly, and they turn back to watch the pyre. For the first time since blowing up the space station, you let yourself hope. You will be a Jedi.

5. Jedi aren't allowed to love. It's a stupid rule – didn't mum always tell you that love is all anyone needs to make the galaxy a better place? How do the Jedi make things better if they don't love? And it isn't just in rules, it's the practice as well. One day, you muster up enough courage to ask distant, distracted Obi-Wan for a hug. He blinks and then stammers around a bit, looking as though he has no _idea_ what a hug is, before saying something about Jedi "not encouraging" hugs because it leads to attachment and that usual Jedi nonsense. Because that's what it is, it's nonsense and the rules are like small knives shredding everything you ever learned from mum into pieces. Obi-Wan gives you a pat on the shoulder instead, and you're left feeling cold and unwanted.

6. Obi-Wan is a strange man, and you don't understand him at all. How is it possible for a human being to be so emotionless, so detached, so _duty-bound_ as he? How can _any_ person be? Just because the chains aren't visible doesn't mean they aren't there. How can Obi-Wan not feel them? He's conservative, and boring, and frustrating, and lectures a lot, and possesses a calm wit which drives you insane. He talks at you about no attachments and no emotion and peace and serenity, the ways of the Jedi, but you don't understand or like any of what he's saying at all. Turning off your emotions? Emotion is like your fuel, burning inside you like a hearth to keep you going. Sometimes it's all you have. Obi-Wan doesn't understand that, and he certainly doesn't make _sense_. Yet…despite all of that…he does let you tinker with your droids, and sometimes you suspect he turns a blind eye to the holorecordings you have of Padmé hidden in your bedroom, and he laughs at your bad jokes and sometimes makes an unexpected quip in return. For however much he claims that duty is of the utmost importance to a Jedi, he still sweeps in to rescue you on missions gone wrong, checking you for injuries as a father would fret about a son. As much as you sometimes can't stand him or what he tries to teach you, he's the closest thing you have to a father, and you love him, and you can't imagine a life without him. You just wish he'd say something in return. He never will, because he's the most conservative Jedi you've ever come across. But it still makes you wonder if he loves you at all. You try not to think about this, though. It hurts when you do.

7. _Dreams pass in time_, that's what Obi-Wan said. That's what he _promised_. And he was wrong – liar, you scream with every lightsaber swipe you aim at the barbarians who murdered your mother. The bleeding wound of the memory of her going limp in your arms, face bruised and body broken, is like a fire is racing through your bloodstream, dictating your every move, every slash through one of those animals' bodies, animals which become decapitated Wattos and Gardullas and Krayns, and gutted Yodas and Windus, and hacked-up Obi-Wans. _Dreams pass in time._

8. For the first time in ten years you feel part of your heart heal as you softly kiss Padmé under the setting sun of Naboo. There's a thrill of the forbidden, the crush of guilt for betraying Obi-Wan (not the Order, never the Order), but right here, right now, you are not Padawan Skywalker. You are Anakin, husband to Padmé Skywalker, the way you knew you would be when you first called her an angel in junkshop on a planet of sand. Right here, right now, it's all you need.

9. Sometimes you think Obi-Wan knows about you and Padmé, or at least suspects. He says nothing, though, and that's as aggravating as if he were constantly prying. Part of you is grateful he never says a word, but the other part of you wishes he would just ask outright, to prove he does care about you and your life, but if he did that you don't know how you'd answer. You want to tell him the truth, but you fear he'll go straight to the Council and tell them, and then you'll be expelled from the Order. _Surely_, you think, _Obi-Wan wouldn't betray me like that_, but then you remember all of the times he'd say things like _attachment is forbidden_ and _hugs are discouraged_ and _duty must always come first_ and the ever haunting _dreams pass in time_, and you bury your desire to tell him beneath layers of convincing yourself that he would never understand.

10. It isn't what he says, when he tells you the Council wants him to spy on Palpatine. It's the way he says, "The Council is asking you," when you ask how _he_ can ask this of you.

11._ For Padmé. This is all for Padmé._ You focus on the memory of Padmé's screams when dies in your nightmares, to block out the screams of the children.

12. "I can overthrow him!" But she's still backing away, eyes wide and horrified, and you feel like a small child begging with her, offering her everything you can just so that she'll _stop walking away_, because everything you've done has been for _her_, everything – why can't she see that?

13. _You were my brother, Anakin. I loved you._ Liar. Liar, liar, _liar_, he's always been a liar. How can he say that he loves you _now?_ If he loved you he wouldn't have done _this_, if he loved you he wouldn't have betrayed you. You look up at him, stretching out your mechanical arm towards him and clawing at the sand, and your mind is screaming at him, _help me, please, don't let me die, Obi-Wan – Obi-Wan –_ but what comes out of your mouth is _I HATE YOU_, and the shattered look in his eyes burns worse than the fire consuming your body. Then he turns and staggers away, leaving a wound in the Force where he stood, and he doesn't look back. The black sand beneath you burns away your tears, and your agony keeps the flames alive.

14. For years, all you had left was Palpatine, and your hatred, and the darkness. The three things in your life which never left you, or walked away, or betrayed you, the way your wife and former Master did. You've learned not to expect anything from others, not after Padmé and Obi-Wan. Which is why you, entrapped in your suit, rise slowly to your feet and stand beside the Emperor again, the way you always have, because you expect Luke to run, or attack again. But Luke…tosses away his lightsaber. "I am a Jedi, like my father before me," Luke Skywalker declares before Palpatine attacks. As his body writhes in agony from the Force Lightning, Luke doesn't look at you with horror the way Padmé did, and he doesn't look at you with the devastated betrayal the way Obi-Wan did on Mustafar. He doesn't hold his arm out to choke you the way you cut your wife off from life, and he doesn't hold his arm out to recall his lightsaber to his hand and attack you the way you attacked Obi-Wan. He holds out his arm with trust and light in his eyes and cries, _Father, please_ – and you know there and then, your son will never walk away from you, the way others walked away from you and you walked away from them. Now, it's your turn.


End file.
